Review of Affliction (2008) by Jesse O — 17 May 2012

What a great movie featuring some simply fabulous performances from Nick Nolte and James Coburn. Nick Nolte does about a great a job of anyone at playing someone who's always constantly on the edge of totally losing it, turning into the man his father is/was.

The movie also has a strong story about Wade's relationship with his father and how Wade, in turn, sort of detaches himself from everyone around him due to harming them like his father did as he was growing up and how he sort of tries to redeem himself and all his faults by solving a murder case that simply wasn't there.

It's a story that makes sense and it never insults your intelligence in any way. While I think a lot of the father/son issues the movie touches on are a bit familiar, in that it's not something you haven't seen before not that it reminds ME of my childhood, but Nick Nolte and James Coburn do such a great job in their roles it's really not a big issue.

And the ending is fantastic, it took what had been a very good movie and made it great. It's definitely a very powerful ending that really does add a lot to the overall package and how it tied everything up.

Granted the ending isn't exactly happy but that doesn't make it any less great. Anyway this is a great movie with a great story and some outstanding performances from Nick Nolte and James Coburn.